One of the things we keep an eye out for around here is the possibility of an event that could tip the scales. Anything that might disrupt oil traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is right at the very top of our list of events to pay especially close attention to.
Here I take a closer look at the recent attack on the Japanese supertanker in the Strait of Hormuz.
Last week there was a mysterious incident in the Strait of Hormuz involving the Japanese supertanker “M Star,” a 314,000 metric ton oil tanker measuring a bit over 1,000 feet in length.
At first, the press did a wonderful job of trotting out explanations that were so easily debunked that they bordered on the ridiculous, including these:
Supertanker blast scare blamed on “freak wave”
FUJAIRAH, United Arab Emirates (Reuters) – A Japanese supertanker, which stirred fears of an attack in the Strait of Hormuz, diverted to a UAE port on Wednesday where officials said the damage was caused by a freak wave.
(…) Oman’s coastguard cited “a tremor” as the cause of the incident, while an official from the Omani transport ministry said it was “business as usual” in the Strait
First of all, a ‘freak wave’ of the size required to damage a supertanker would a tricky thing to produce in the Strait of Hormuz because it is so narrow. Freak waves tend to form in water bodies containing the long, open distances necessary to produce big waves traveling at angles to each other, which can then combine into a ‘freak.’ Also, you need some sort of a storm, and there was none in the region that day.
by farmer-brown-2 
